Let’s get to know the “Yemen” navy better; A miracle in the conditions of war and embargo.
According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, until the beginning of 2015, that is, when the Arab coalition led by Saudi Arabia and with the green light and support of the United States began the great war against Yemen, Sana’a had a naval force that is capable of determining the rules of conflict in the Red Sea or support It did not enjoy the territorial waters of Yemen and had a naval base in Hodeidah with a series of old defensive weapons.
However, the destruction of the Yemeni navy was one of the priorities of the aggressor coalition in attacking this country. So that in the first half of 2015, the weapons belonging to Yemen’s coastal defense were almost destroyed during dozens of attacks, and the government of Sana’a considered this action of the enemy in the framework of a plan to target the Red Sea and its coasts and therefore took steps to rebuild the navy. Yemen fought in complicated conditions.
During that period, the Yemenis began to develop their navy’s defense and combat capabilities until in 2020, the Yemeni navy became one of the main powers of the country’s armed forces and continued to develop and improve. During this period, the Yemeni Navy succeeded in defeating a large number of naval landing operations carried out by the aggressor coalition to occupy the coasts of Yemen.
The statistics issued by the Ministry of Defense of Sana’a confirm that between the years 2015 and 2021, the naval and coastal defense forces were able to carry out more than 34 special operations targeting ships, frigates, and boats along the coast under their control in the provinces of Hajjah and Hodeidah. reach in front of Bab al-Mandab and the enemy’s ports and facilities and neutralize the naval operations of the aggressor coalition and seize some ships that had violated Yemen’s territorial waters.
One of the most obvious operations in this field was the targeting of the Emirates “Swift” ship with a Yemeni Navy missile in early October 2016. This ship suffered huge damage in the mentioned operation and was transferred to one of the scrap sales ports in Greece. Also, on January 30, 2017, the Yemeni Navy targeted a Saudi frigate that was conducting hostile operations in front of Hodeidah.
Following these incidents, the member states of the aggressor coalition began to express concern about the penetration of Yemeni forces into the Red Sea and accused the Ansarullah movement of using sea mines and endangering international shipping. This was the concern of the aggressor coalition following the revelation that Yemeni engineers were able to develop Chinese-made C-801 sea missiles in November 2017 and put them back into service under the name “Mandab 1”.